“Thy voice is heard through rolling drums
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire, he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
The chief value of all patriotic songs and poems, like Mrs. Howe’s
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or Mr. Stedman’s John Brown poem, or
Randall’s “Maryland,” or Burns’s “Bannnockburn,” or Whitman’s “Beat!
Beat! Drums,” is their impassioned eloquence. Patriotism, war, wrong,
slavery, these are the inspirers of eloquence.
Of course no sharp line can be drawn between eloquence and poetry; they
run together, they blend in all first-class poems; yet there is a wide
difference between the two, and it is probably in the direction I have
indicated. Power and mastery in either field are the most precious of
human gifts.